Mirror Dance

“So much alike, you two,” he murmured, circling them in suppressed anxiety. Smiling. “I’ll bet you could exchange clothes with each other, and no one could tell the difference.” Rowan’s quick glance told him yes, she’d caught it, but thought he was pushing it too hard. “Naw,” he went on, pursing his lips and tilting his head, “I don’t think so. The girl’s too fat. Don’t you think she’s too fat, Rowan?”

“I am not fat!” said Lilly Junior indignantly.

“Rowan’s clothes would never fit you.”

“You’re wrong,” said Rowan, giving up and letting herself be pushed into fast-forward. “He’s an idiot. Let’s prove it, Lilly.” She began to peel out of her jacket, blouse, trousers.

Slowly, very curiously, the girl took off her jacket and skirt, and took up Rowan’s outfit. Rowan did not yet touch Lilly’s silks, laid out neatly on the bed.

“Oh, that looks nice,” said Rowan. She nodded toward the bathroom. “You should go look at yourself.”

“I was wrong,” Miles admitted nobly, steering the girl toward the bathroom. No time to plot, no way to give orders. He’d have to utterly rely on Rowan’s … initiative. “Actually, Rowan’s clothes look quite good on you. Imagine yourself as a Durona surgeon. They’re all doctors there, did you know? You could be a doctor too… .” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rowan tear the bands from her hair and shake it loose, and grab for the silks. He let the door shut behind him and Lilly, and aimed her at the mirror. He turned on the water, to mask the sound of Rowan’s knock on the outer door, of the guard opening it, of her retreat, hair swinging down across her face… .

Lilly stared into the long mirror. She glanced at him by her side in it, waving his hand as if to introduce her to herself, then down at the top of his head by her shoulder. He grabbed a cup and took a gulp of water, to clear his throat for action. How long could he keep the girl distracted in here? He didn’t think he could successfully sap her on the skull, and he was not completely certain which item in Rowan’s medical satchel, sitting on the countertop, was the threatened sedative.

To his surprise, she spoke first. “You’re the one who came for me, aren’t you. For all us clones.”

“Uh …” The disastrous Dendarii raid on Bharaputra’s? Had she been one of the rescuees? What was she doing back here, then? “Excuse me. I’ve been dead, lately, and my brain isn’t working too well. Cryo-amnesia. It might have been me, but you might have met my clone-twin.”

“You have clone-sibs too?”

“At least one. My … brother.”

“You were really dead?” She sounded faintly disbelieving.

He pulled up his gray knit shirt and displayed his scars.

“Oh,” she said, impressed. “I guess you were.”

“Rowan put me back together. She’s very good.” No, don’t draw her attention to the missing Rowan. “You could be just as good, I’ll bet, if you tried. If you were trained.”

“What was it like? Being dead?” Her eyes were suddenly intent upon his face.

He shrugged his shirt back down. “Dull. Really boring. A blank. I don’t remember anything. I don’t remember dying—” His breath caught… . the projectile weapon’s muzzle, bright with flame … hischest bursting outward, terrible pain … He inhaled, and leaned against the counter, legs suddenly weak. “Lonely. You wouldn’t like it. I guarantee.” He took her warm hand. “Being alive is much better. Being alive is, is …” He needed something to stand on. He scrambled up on the counter instead, crouching eye to eye with her at last. He twined her hair in his hand, tilted his head, and kissed her, just a brief press of the lips. “You can tell you’re alive when somebody touches you back.”

She drew back, shocked and interested. “You kiss differently from the Baron.”

His brain seemed to hiccup. “The Baron has kissed you?”

“Yes …”

Sampling his wife’s new body early? How soon was that transplant scheduled? “Have you always lived with, uh, your lady?”

“No. I was brought here after the clone-creche was wrecked. The repairs are almost complete, I’ll be moving back soon.”

“But … not for long.”

“No.”

The temptations to the Baron must be … interesting. After all, she would have her brain destroyed soon, and be unable to accuse. Vasa Luigi could do anything but damage her virginity. What was this doing to her apparent mental conditioning, her allegiance to her destiny? Something, obviously, or she wouldn’t be here.

She glanced at the closed door, and her mouth went round in sudden suspicion. She pulled her hand from his grip, and raced back to the empty bedroom. “Oh, no!”

“Sh! Sh!” He ran after her, grabbed her hand again, lunged up to stand on the bed to turn her face to his and regain eye contact. “Don’t shout!” he hissed. “If you run out and tell the guards, you’ll be in terrible trouble, but if you just wait until she comes back, no one will ever know.” He felt quite vile, to be playing so on her obvious panic, but it had to be done. “Be quiet, and no one will ever know.” He had no idea if Rowan intended to come back, for that matter. By this point maybe she had just wanted to escape from him. None of his plans had assumed a piece of luck like this.

Lilly Junior could physically overpower him with ease, though he was not sure if she realized it. One good punch to his chest would drop him to the floor. She wouldn’t even have to hit him very hard.

“Sit down,” he told her. “Here, next to me. Don’t be afraid. Actually, I can’t imagine what you could possibly be afraid of, if your destiny doesn’t make you blink. You must be a courageous girl. Woman. Sit …” He drew her down; she glanced from him to the door in great uncertainty, but allowed herself to be settled, temporarily. Her muscles were tight as springs. “Tell me … tell me about yourself. Tell me about your life. You are a most interesting person, do you know?”

“Me?”

“I can’t remember much about my life, right now, which is why I ask. It’s a terror to me, not to be able to remember. It’s killing me. What’s the very earliest thing about yourself that you can remember?”

“Why … I suppose … the place I lived before I came to the creche. There was a woman who took care of me. I have—this is silly—but I remember she had some purple flowers, as tall as,! was, that grew out of this little square of a garden, hardly a meter square, and they smelled like grapes.”

“Yes? Tell me more about those flowers …”

They were in for a long conversation, he feared. And then what? That Rowan had not yet been brought back was a very good sign. That she might not be coming back left an unsettling dilemma for Lilly Junior. So what could the Baron and Baronne possibly do to her? his mind mocked savagely. Kill her?

They talked of her life in the creche. He teased out an account of the Dendarii raid from her point of view. How she had managed to re-join the Baron. Sharp, sharp kid. What a mess for Mark. The pauses grew longer. He was going to end up talking about himself soon, just to keep things going, and that was incredibly dangerous. She was running out of conversation, her eyes turning more and more often toward the door.

“Rowan’s not coming back,” said Lilly Junior at last. “Is she.”

“I think not,” he said frankly. “I think she’s escaped clean.”

“How can you tell?”

“If they had caught her, they would have come for you, even if they didn’t bring her back here. From their point of view, Rowan is still in here. It’s you who’s missing.”

“You don’t think they could have mistaken her for me, do you?” she gasped in alarm. “Taken her to be united with my lady?”

He wasn’t sure if she was afraid for Rowan, or afraid that Rowan would steal her place. What a ghastly, hideous new paranoia. “How soon are you … no,” he reassured her. Himself. “No. At a glance in the hallway, sure, you’d look quite alike, but someone would have to take a closer look for that. She’s years older than you. It’s just not possible.”

“What should I do?” She tried to get to her feet; he held her arm, pulled her back to his side on the bed.

“Nothing,” he advised. “It’s all right. Tell them—tell them I made you stay in here.”

She looked askance at his littleness. “How?”